


Acting Jack

by Apple



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Bickering, Friendship, Gap Filler, Gen, Missing Scene, Ninja
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 13:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apple/pseuds/Apple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As far as Tatsuki was concerned, insanity was just another part of daily life in Karakura. And if that daily life involved magical hangovers, ninjas, and giant pigs, well, it was just one more reason to turn Ichigo into her own personal punching bag when he finally came back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acting Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Nope, don't own.
> 
> Rated for language.
> 
> This was originally posted under my FFnet pen name, Kitsuru, and is AU for when Karakura Town was in Soul Society. I'm not entirely caught up with the current manga, so it might have managed to become even more AU since I last checked. I fixed up the writing a bit, but otherwise didn't change anything.

It was Monday afternoon, and Arisawa Tatsuki had resigned herself to yet another day of staring out the window and being yelled at for it by her teachers. She couldn't really bother to care about the latter, though, not anymore. After all, Ochi-sensei wasn't the one who had been kidnapped and dragged off by Orange-car, or whatever that shopkeeper had called those—

— _can't be human_ can't be _holes in their chests oh kami-sama how can there be holes_ through _their chests bone on their faces everyone why is everyone so still why aren't they moving too still too still there's so much pressure in the air so heavy can't fight can't run can't_ breathe _—_

—those  _things_  that had been showing up so much lately. The ones Don Kanonji and the others seemed to think they had actually made a difference against the day before. But Tatsuki couldn't deny that it had been better than doing nothing, and more satisfying to boot. Even if the weirdo  _had_  stuck them in spandex sentai outfits, at least she'd finally been able to hit something.

She clenched her fist; Ichigo had better bring Orihime back, and he'd better bring himself back too while he was at it. After he did—not if, when, there was no way that even an idiot like him would be stupid enough  _not_  too—she'd kick the crap out of him until he told her everything they had been hiding.

_And when he's done—_

She never did finish that thought.

Later, she would describe that moment as when that the world decided to sucker-punch her in the gut. Hard. And then kick her a few times while she was lying huddled in a fetal position on the floor, just for the fun of it, laughing and jeering and making the drumbeats that hadn't been pounding away in her skull three seconds ago even worse.

But when the moment itself happened, describing it was the last thing on her mind. In fact, she couldn't do anything but fall out of her chair, curl up into a tight little ball of nausea and pain and the surety that something Very Fucking Bad was happening and that she wasn't going to make it out alive and damnit she hadn't gotten to beat Ichigo to a bloody pulp yet, damnit damnit dam—

Then, as soon as it had started, it was over. Tatsuki, her head pounding and the rest of her body throbbing as though she had just been tackled by the world's greatest sumo wrestler, didn't uncurl as her heart hammered out one beat, then two, then twenty, until she forced herself to let go of her knees and clamber—unsteadily, as she nearly fell back down to the cold floor—to her feet, more than half-supported by her desk. "What the heck was that?"

"Owowow…" Came the familiar whimper from behind her. "Arisawa-san, you're too loud…"

She turned her head—turning her entire body was too much effort—to see Keigo curled up on the floor, just as she had been less than a minute ago. Behind him, a gray-faced Mizuiro was slowly trying to match her own parody at standing up. She looked at them for a moment, then back towards the front of the room. "Ochi-sensei, what was—Ochi-sensei?"

Their teacher was sprawled out over her desk, a pencil still gripped loosely in one hand and drool leaking onto the test papers that she was using as a pillow. Tatsuki blinked, and then managed to force herself to turn to survey the entire classroom. Save for Keigo, Mizurio, and herself, every member of class three was out cold. Some were even snoring.

The dark-haired girl staggered over to the closest of those. "Oi, Chizuru!"

The class lesbian went on sleeping, even after being poked by her classmate and would-never-admit-it-out-loud friend. Tatsuki tried everything she could, but nothing worked. Even shouting "Orihime, put your shirt back on!" had no effect, at least not on the unconscious girl. Although Keigo, who had managed to stand up as well, tumbled right back down trying to stem the blood flow from his nose. The martial artist couldn't even summon up the energy to scowl at him.

"I give up." She finally declared, throwing up her hands in frustration then grimacing at the resulting pain.  _Okay, moving?_ Bad _idea._  "What happened to them? And why didn't it happen to us too?"

"We know as much as you do, Arisawa-san." Mizuiro said, shrugging and then wincing. "Although I'm jealous… could you not be so loud, please?"

"Don't talk… please don't…" The third musketeer agreed with a whimper, clutching at his head. "Feels like… hangover…"

"You've never had a hangover." Tatsuki tried to retort, but the last few words came out as a moan.

The womanizer of the group nodded, grimacing slightly. "She has a point, Asano-san."

The brunette just whimpered. He couldn't truthfully deny their words, and frankly he was in too much pain to lie.

It took almost fifteen minutes for them to recover enough to stagger out of the classroom, and by then, they were all a bit more talkative. Especially Keigo.

"Why are we doing this?" He wailed as well as he could, considering his pounding temples. "Why can't we just stay back at the classroom and draw on everyone's faces before they wake up?"

"You want to draw on Ooshima's face?" She asked, keeping her face as straight as possible. "Be my guest. The beating he gives you will probably get him suspended again."

The brunette gulped audibly. "So, where are we going?"

She looked down the street. People had collapsed on the sidewalks, slumped over the steering wheels in their cars—which thankfully seemed to have stopped on their own after whatever had happened—even while crossing the street. While they walked, they had to keep an eye on the ground to make sure that they didn't step on anyone—she had tripped over two sleepers already, although she blamed that on the lingering aftereffects of… whatever it had been. The two trailing behind her were wise enough not to comment on it.

"Something's going on." The karate champ muttered. "Something weird. Where did we go the last time something weird was happening?"

"Not to the beach…"

"Are you  _still_  whining about that?" Too bad they didn't have a coconut this time, a shrill voice giggled in the back of Tatsuki's head. Or maybe not, with the sudden awkward silence from her companions.

"We followed Ichigo." Mizuiro put in helpfully before they could stray too far from the topic, or contemplate their growing mutual insanity.

"And where did Ichigo lead us?" She asked significantly. A grin spread across her face as they realized what she was trying to say.

"SHIT!"

"What's wrong with my idea?" She asked, her smug smile immediately shifting into a scowl that would give Ichigo's a run for it's yen. " _I_  think it's good."

"That wasn't me." Keigo told her. MIzuiro shook his head when she looked at him.

"Well, if it wasn't either of you," she said slowly, "and it wasn't me… then who—"

The voice, which sounded increasingly familiar, followed its previous shout up with several more censorable words. The trio exchanged glances and started running towards the source.

"…there's no way Ichigo taught her those." Keigo managed to pant, the words fighting past effort and shock both to become something close to coherent.

"Taught her them?" Tatsuki snorted, thinking of their deceptively gruff friend. "Does he even  _know_  them?"

"Definitely not that last one." Mizuiro answered, raising an eyebrow.

It was hard to miss the speaker, being the only moving person—save for one of the sleepers who rolled over, still snoring away and mumbling something about pancakes—in sight. Her back was turned towards them as she tried to wake one of the aforementioned unconscious people. The three musketeers skidded to a stop behind her, and the karate champ tapped her on the shoulder. "Karin-chan?"

"Tatsuki-chan?" Ichigo's little sister whirled around to gape at the trio. "Mizuiro-san? Keigo?"

"Why no formality with me?" The brunette muttered, but didn't press the subject. He didn't want someone else calling him Asano-san.

"We heard you shouting." Tatsuki told the younger girl. "What happened?"

"Other than the world's worst…  _whatever_  it was?" Karin waved an arm at the sprawled figures around them. "Tito managed to block a goal going down—for the first time  _ever_ , by the way—and I scored enough while the other team was unconscious to win us the next twenty games… Yuzu wasn't looking too well, though" she bit her lip and turned her head to glance at her sister, who the three teens now saw lying behind the dark-haired twin. "And now she's out, too."

"But she managed to stay awake for a while?"

"Hai," the soccer player nodded at Mizuiro's question, and then frowned up at them. "Hold on a second, what are you guys doing up anyways?"

"Same reason you are, probably" Tatsuki informed her, "whatever that is."

"It's probably got something to do with…" Karin trailed off, unsure of what to say.

The three classmates exchanged a  _look_ , and then spoke in unison. "Ichigo."

The youngest member of their growing group raised an eyebrow. "How much do you know?"

"Ichigo's been running around in a black kimono," Tatsuki began with a scowl, "and getting threatened by the weird new transfer student."

"Hirako-san?" Mizuiro made a thoughtful little sound as he mulled the new information over. "Come to think of it, he hasn't shown up for class in a while…"

"First he hugs Inoue-san," Keigo,  _Keigo_  of all of them, snarled. Tatsuki wondered if it really was the end of the world. "Now he's threatening Ichigo?"

"Wait." Pause. Rewind. Turn up the volume until the neighbors pounded on the door. Display the closed captions, just to be sure.  **"** He. Did. _WHAT?"_

"Hugged Orihime-chan, apparently." Karin put in, her expression that of someone who has put two and two together and realized that, even if it doesn't really make sense, it just might equal five and a half."Hey, how did Ichi-nii take it?"

"He wasn't happy." Was the simple answer. Mizuiro didn't add that the orangette had been even less pleased by the rumors that had spouted almost immediately afterwards—rumors that Mizuiro had had  _nothing_  to do with, of course.

"I still want to know when he got so possessive of Inoue-san…" Their other classmate muttered, shaking his head at the memory.

"Since he and Orihime started keeping secrets." Tatsuki replied, clenching her fists at her sides.

"Chad, too," the ladies man of the group commented with a frown, and his less-fortunate friend nodded. "Ever since that thing with the parakeet, he's been acting weird."

"And then there was how Ishida started eating lunch with all of you." The black belt recalled. "Ichigo didn't even know his name the day before then, Orihime had to tell him. Not to mention that he came in with bandages all over his hands and told us he'd fallen down, like we were supposed to believe such a ridiculous story! And that was the same day as…"

She trailed off, unsure of how to describe the shimmering air, the puppets she had called her classmates and friend, the way she had found herself joining them and actually  _hitting_  Orihime. Hitting. Orihime.

Even as weird as the world was now, she still had to wonder if any of them would believe her. She wished she didn't believe herself.

"They're involved?" They'd almost forgotten Karin was there, and blinked at her as she continued. "I was sure that Rukia-chan—"

"Rukia?" Keigo yelped. "Kuchicki Rukia?"

That sound, Tatsuki supposed were her teeth grinding together. Or maybe the gears of logic whirling and screaming at them just how blind they'd all been, too miss something that so many of the ones they cared about had hidden from them.

"She's probably been keeping secrets since she first transferred into our class," Mizuiro murmured what they had all realized. "In fact, whatever's going on…maybe that's when it started."

Keigo frowned, then turned to Karin. "Didn't your house get hit by a truck then?"

She thought for a moment before giving a decisive nod. The constant sidelong glances at her slumbering sister had slowed, and were now replaced by widened eyes and fisted hands as possibilities and impossible-yet-too-plausible explanations wormed their way into her mind. Tatsuki tried to ignore the real fear that was coming with them, reminding herself that it was all Ichigo's fault.

It was always his fault, at least until he came back. "Is that when you all met Rukia-chan?"

"Maybe she had something to do with that truck." Mizuiro mused. But there was doubt in his gaze, and even the most aggressive members of the group couldn't find it in themselves to suspect the girl who curtsied and climbed trees for lunch of driving a truck through a house.

_But what if…_

"Or maybe there wasn't a truck at all." Tatsuki thought back to a night that started out with a broken toy and ended with memories of sumo wrestlers, strange dreams, and increasingly clearer blurs. After a moment, she shook her head. "But Orihime only started hiding things this summer—when she  _told_  me she went to visit her aunt. At the same time that Ichigo and the others weren't around."

"Ichi-nii came back," the little girl mumbled, almost reluctantly, "but it wasn't him."

Mizuiro was the first to digest that strange—even considering the rest of the conversation—revelation. "Then who—"

"I don't know, but he wasn't Ichi-nii." Karin said with a shrug, and then glanced at Tatsuki. "But that's not important."

"What are you talking about?" Tatsuki barely kept from shouting. "If someone's been pretending to be Ichigo, then of course it's important!"

"This guy… he's not dangerous." The child said, feet planted firmly on the pavement as she fixed the older girl with a stubborn glare. "Just weird. And I don't think he's involved with this, at least not that much."

"Fine," karate champ agreed with a dark scowl, the sort that promised retribution and pain and whatever else one could do with a crowbar when given the chance. But there probably were those who deserved it more, she reminded herself, _especially now._  "And now some bastard's kidnapped Orihime—"

"Wait," came the surprisingly surprising yelp, " _what_?"

"It's a long story," Mizuiro put in, "and we still haven't heard most of it yet ourselves. Or any, really."

"Besides, shouldn't we get out of here?" Keigo waved a hand wildly at the limp bodies sprawled everywhere. "I don't know about you, but if that— _whatever_ it was happens again, I don't want to get caught out here."

"But… why?" Tatsuki had introduced her former best friend's family to her new best friend years ago, and although they had never gotten to know her very well, they had gotten along a little too well for anyone's peace of mind. "Why would someone kidnap Orihime-chan?"

Rather than answer, the other dark-haired girl bent down and grabbed one of Yuzu's arms. The girl moaned and muttered "five more minutes" but didn't wake up, not even while the high schooler was settling her on her back. Tatsuki stood up with a slight grunt, wishing that Chad or Ichigo were there. Karate may have honed her muscles, but she wouldn't be able to carry Yuzu for long.

"I don't know." She looked at the other three. "But it's about time we found out."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there—"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, KEIGO,  _NO_!"

"…you didn't have to shout."

"Yeah," Karin muttered, "she did."

They were walking down the street, and, as it was apt to, the fear and tension in the air had drained into an almost tangible silence. Keigo, as  _he_  was apt to do, had pulled out his class clown act to try and lighten the mood a bit. They knew he was just trying to help, but it hadn't exactly passed the safe-in-a-three-mile-vicinity-of-Arisawa-Tatsuki Exam with flying colors.

"Mizuiro," Keigo wailed, sending him spiraling down into F-minus territory, "everyone's so cruel to me!"

"Really, Asano-san?" The dark-haired teen asked, not even glancing up from his cell phone. "What gives you that idea?"

"It's because they ye—hey, wait a second! Stop calling me that!"

"Calling you what, Asano-san?"

"THAT!" The brunette looked about ready to start tearing his hair out. "Stop calling me  _that_!"

"I still don't know what you mean, Asano-san."

The two continued to chatter, and the youngest girl sped up, until she was walking alongside her elder. With Tatsuki bent over as she was to keep Yuzu from slipping, their heads were almost even.  _Damn, I hate being short._

"Can I gag them?" Karin pleaded. "Please?"

"Only if you let me help." The karate champ grumbled back. "And right now, I've kind of got my hands full."

"She was awake, at first." The ten year old looked down, scuffing her grass-stained tennis shoes a bit with every step. "Yawning, yeah, and rubbing her eyes a bit, but she didn't fall asleep right away like everyone else. Do you think…"

"None of us are tired. I'm pretty sure we won't start snoring anytime soon."

"Unless we decide to knock Keigo-kun out." The two of them shared a snigger at the thought. Although they really knew that, in this case at least, the excitable teen was using his overly dramatic personality as a way to distract not only himself but the rest of them as well, they were partially doing the same thing with their own jabs at him.

"Tatsuki-chan." Karin suddenly stopped, and Tatsuki turned half around to look at her.

"What's up?"

"The road…" She trailed off, and pointed. The older girl glanced back at the way they had been going—she hadn't really been paying attention before, other than to make sure she didn't trip over any more —and did a double-take. As she realized what she was seeing, she almost dropped her passenger.

The streets before them were paved as always, the occasional pothole or crack small and almost unnoticeable, with sidewalks on either side. Beyond the cement to her right was a house, to her left the river. But it wasn't flowing, she realized for the first time, it hadn't been since they'd left the school—after all, it cut off.

Everything—the street, the grass, the neighborhood,  _everything_. None of the houses—or people for that matter, thank kami-sama—extended past where the river stopped. The river itself was a river, sure, but then it was suddenly grass and  _what the hell?_

Tatsuki didn't realize she'd spoken, or rather screamed, the question out loud until Keigo squeaked and edged closer Karin, who had taken more than a few steps back herself. Mizuiro's cell phone hung perilously close to the edge of his fingertips. Yuzu's arms had tightened around the older girl's neck… it was actually kind of uncomfortable, know that she thought of it. She wasn't being choked or anything, but Ichigo's sister had such thin arms, if she didn't know any better she'd have called them razor edged or…

"…you've  _got_  to be kidding me," the karate champion moaned after her brain had added one and one and came up with yes, that  _was_  a sword being held against her throat. An honest to fucking goodness  _sword_.

_Like today couldn't get any worse…_

A cry told her that the worst was yet to come as a second, then a third, then more than she cared to count, enemy appeared out  _of thin-freaking-air_ , but Tatsuki didn't have time to think about it as Karin was suddenly yanked off of her feet with a yelp. Keigo reached for the little girl—at any other time, his classmates would have taunted him for showing a bit of actual spine, but at the moment even Mizuiro was a bit too preoccupied to even consider it—before one of the figures  _flickered_  and suddenly the brunette was curling over his stomach and just folding and falling and—

_No_ , Tatsuki told herself,  _breathe._

Focus on the breath, not the sharp thing poking your neck, not Keigo on the floor, not the fact that what seemed to be an entire army of figures in black with shiny pointy things had surrounded them.  _And definitely not the fact that we're probably all screwed._

Because they weren't—she wouldn't let them be. She still had to kick Ichigo's ass, after all. And she'd be too guilty to beat up Ichigo if his kid sisters got hurt. And Keigo, and Mizuiro, and Tatsuki knew even she herself. None of them could get hurt, or she wouldn't be able to strangle the orangette.

Ninjas.

That's what had surrounded them and currently had the group of formerly-almost-normal high schoolers at sword-point.  _Ninjas_ , complete with throw-able pointy things and a penchant on trying to terrify the poor saps they captured with them.

Naturally, Tatsuki got bored of that routine after about five minutes. And if she still flinched whenever a finger came too close to a sword hilt, well, she was only shocked out of her wits, not terrified. Really. And if you want to say otherwise, well, did  _you_  get yourself ranked the second-strongest high school girl in Japan the week you broke your arm?

And she was  _not_  tempted in any way, shape, or form, to whimper and cower behind the nearest person. Especially considering that that particular person might not have been a person at all, from what she could see between the mask and the cap the shinobi all wore.

Admittedly, she was the one the others would have been cowering behind if they had been allowed to move enough to do so, but that was beside the point. At the moment, they were limited to darting little sidelong glances towards each other, the occasional accidental step closer to the closest familiar presence. Such an action, subconscious as it was, tended to be halted almost immediately by a few fingers on a sword hilt and the feeling that it would probably be best for one's life span if they scurried away immediately, screw courage and any semblance of dignity.

"Hey," Tatsuki finally growled, planting her feet and glowering at the ninja who had slung little Yuzu over his shoulder. "Be careful with her! You're carrying a little kid, not a futon!"

The general feeling of  _oh-crap-we're-all-going-to-die_  spiked as the entire escort turned towards her. And it wasn't from the weapons, she realized, or even the cold appraisal in the eyes that were all they could really see in those faces. It was the same thing she'd felt that day in the park—the "freak accident of a meteor strike", the news had said. But ninjutsu or not, she knew that their captors wouldn't have had a chance against that one big…  _whatever_  he had been.

She had survived him, but something told her there would be no rescue for her this time. But at this point, she was sick of fear and helplessness, and just wanted to be angry. And being so callous with the child who named her dolls and had a crush on Don Kanonji? That was more,  _much_  more, than enough to set the temperamental teen off.

And apparently, she wasn't the only one, because three seconds after one of the ninja's moved towards Tatsuki, he found himself kicked. 

In the shin.

By Karin.

Whose foot happened to be glowing.

G-L-O-W-I-N-G.

Meaning that there was light, and it was coming from the aforementioned foot. As strange as her world had gotten, Tatsuki was reasonably sure that feet weren't supposed to do that. Keigo must have agreed with her, judging from the wail of "What is  _wrong_  with this place?" that she heard from somewhere on her left.

He had a point, though. If invisible orange-headed punks weren't running around in kimonos, or girls without any common sense or aggression whatsoever weren't trying to fight mind-control heat shimmers, then there was a ten-year-old kid trying to top them both!

And not doing too bad of a job of it, either, the older girl had to admit, watching the dust clear to reveal the size of the hole the ninja had made on his way through the wall of the nearest house. Even Karin was left dumbstruck at what she had done—at least, until a sudden yank on her collar left her gasping.

Tatsuki was already moving as Karin was again hauled up off of her feet, struggling and trying to kick her now-warier captor. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could see Mizuiro and Keigo doing the same.

She could here herself shouting something—she wasn't sure what, only that she probably shouldn't have been saying anything like that in front of little kids, but hell, they were Ichigo's sisters so they'd probably heard worse during the 'loving wake-up calls' their dad loved to give his eldest son, and  _fuck it we're all probably deader than dead anyways._

The situation was teetering on a cliff, about to plummet down with all the force of gravity and Murphy's Law, when it happened.

" _WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"_

Tatsuki could have sworn she heard a whimper from somewhere amongst the stoic squadren.  _Must've been my imagination._

A one-armed, tattooed woman stomped up to them, looking like the karate champ herself after beating down Chizuru twenty times in an hour: harried, wary, and decidedly ticked off. She also happened to be holding what looked like a lit bomb in her only remaining hand, but that didn't seem quite as dangerous. Neither did the matched pair of hulking giants a few steps behind her, for that matter.

_Or not._ That was  _definitely_  a gulp from the ninja breathing down the back of her neck.

Narrowed eyes raked over the scene, lingering over Karin—who had resumed her squirming after the shock of the new arrival had worn off—and the unconscious Yuzu before settling onto the eldest girl of the motley group. Tatsuki straightened and glared right back, until that measuring gaze finally flicked away from her and settled on her captors.

"Aren't you supposed to be hunting down Hollows?" The stranger growled, her voice clear above the hissing of the dwindling fuse. "Or can't you tell the difference between soulsucking monsters and a bunch of brats? An there _is_  a difference, you overpaid idiots."

Tatsuki would have bristled at that, but it was hard to even bring yourself to breath when you had a sword against your throat. Instead, she reveled in her daydreams of doing so, along with more turning a certain strawberry into jam.

"They're still awake, Shiba-dono." The first ninja, the one who'd put a sword to Tatsuki's throat, spoke. His voice was surprisingly soft, the karate practictioner noted absently. "And one was able to attack using reiatsu."

"Idiot!" The apparently important stranger snapped. "Karakura's the juureichi, remember? Did you think Ichigo and his friends were the only humans with—"

"Ichi-nii?" Karin stopped struggling, only straining to get a better look at the stranger who had spoken that all-important name. "You know Ichi-nii?"

There was a moment of nothing but gaping on the part of the strangers, and a fervent desire for a camera by the voice of insanity in the back of Tatsuki's head. She could even make out the outlines of dropped jaws behind the masks the shinobi wore as, one and all, they directed bulging eyes towards the little girl. Even the loud newcomer was too busy gaping at them to shout.

_Dammit Ichigo, you've got a lot of explaining to do later…_  Tatsuki vowed, a heartbeat before the already-deranged world got… well, not crazier, but not exactly sane either.

* * *

Scratch that. Whatever world they were in had officially surpassed such mundane terms as 'insane' and 'crazy' and had belly-flopped right into the deep end of the asylum.

It said a lot about her day that Tatsuki couldn't even bring herself to be surprised. Irritated? Hell yes. Surprised? Not anymore.

To drive that point home, she was currently glaring at a massive wild boar, one that wore a pink bow in it's bristling mane. She didn't even care anymore about how many levels of wrong that sentence held, or how it had reduced even Mizuiro to stammering.

She just wanted the damn thing to get out of her way.

She didn't even bother with snide remarks about pork ribs being her favorite food. She just  _glared_.

Which, as Keigo could attest, was terrifying enough on its own.

"DAMMIT, GANJU!" Unbelievably enough, the bellow from earlier had barely scratched the surface of the roar that the one-armed woman was unleashing at that moment. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THAT PIG? I'M GOING TO TURN IT INTO PORK BUNS!"

"NEESAN, NOOOOOOOOOO!"

"So…" Tatsuki muttered in an undertone. "Who wants to help me kill Ichigo when this is over?"

Multiple hands would have been raised, if not for the fact that every living member of the group was scrambling to keep from being trampled by a crazed wild boar. The ninjas had been intelligent, or maybe just fast enough to run for their lives the second the animal had knocked the door down. And that had been  _before_  the explosions.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the military slang "acting Jack", which can also be derived into "acting jackass" or "acting Jane", and although I thought about using the third one for a Tatsuki-fic, I liked the ring of the first one the best. It refers to someone who has been promoted to a position of more responsibility, without a pay raise.


End file.
